In this post, I would like to share a tool you might have come across before. Therefore, rather than just showing how to use it, I decided to share how I use it with my own students as well.

I have been using padlet for a long time. I first came across with it two years ago when I was asked to post a message on a PLN member’s birthday wall. Then, it turned out to be such a useful tool that I felt tempted to write a post on it.

What is padlet?

Linoit is a tool enabling users to create walls and post sticky notes on other people’s walls.  It is possible to change privacy settings of the posts and edit the posts made by your students.

How can it be used?

All you need to do is to sign up for a padlet account. You can also connect your facebook or gmail accounts with it  but I do not advise doing it because of security reasons.

Here are the steps to use it after signing up for an account:

1- Create a board.

2-Right click on the board and give your instruction.

3-Give the link to the board and share it with your students (or with the people you would like to collaborate with) .

4- After they write a response, if there are any grammatical or lexical errors, correct them. (You can do it with students in class as well.)

5-If you have a class blog or a wiki, get the embed code and embed your padlet board on it. If you are using a course management system like moodle or blackboard, share the link of the board there.

How I have used it

As I mentioned previously, I have used padlet  with students having different proficiency levels. So far, I and my students have used  it for  three  main purposes:

1-Vocabulary Revision: I created boards for each unit we covered in the coursebook and assigned them to groups of students. They edited the boards with their group members and wrote  detailed descriptions for the  new words. They also added different sections like collocations, example sentences, and synonyms and antonyms. Some of them added photos. Here are some examples :

• This one is created by my students in the elementary level. We used it before the exam.
• This is another one created by my elementary students to revise vocabulary of a unit after its completion.
• This one is created by my upper intermediate students. (We went over some of the mistakes there in class.)

2-Pre/Post Reading or Listening Activities: Before or after a reading or a listening activity, I asked the students a question related to the unit. They posted individual sticky notes answering the question posted. Then I shared the wall on twitter using a relevant hashtag (#). Then, people following the hashtag I used on twitter also wrote their ideas on the wall. This really motivated my students and exposed them to the views of other people. Here are some examples:

• This wall was created as a post reading activity.  After reading a text on architecture, my students wrote their ideas about the things which make a building attractive. Then, other people (probably architects) joined the discussion by sharing their ideas.